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Sunday, 19 February 2017

From
the developers of Limbo, INSIDE is another puzzle/platform game about
a strange young boy running from left to right through a mysterious
world – at least until the end when he merges with a giant testicle
and embarks upon a testicle monster rampage.

I
wasn’t sure if I should talk about the testicle monster. I don’t
want to spoil things. But how can I not mention a testicle
monster? Okay, so it’s not really a giant testicle, but that’s
all I could think of as I rolled that monster about, scattering the
puny humans in my path. Look out! Giant testicle coming through!

I
completed INSIDE in 3 hours. So it’s short, but at least it’s
appropriately priced. I’ve always said a game is as long as it
needs to be. Is INSIDE as long as it needs to be? No, not in
my opinion. If it was, I might have felt a little more satisfied by
its end. Instead, I just sat back and said ‘is that it?’

The
‘story’ of INSIDE really doesn’t go anywhere. It just ends
rather abruptly. Whilst it’s possible to interpret the story in
different ways, all that really matters is if it provides a
resolution that satisfies the player. INSIDE doesn’t – at least
it didn’t for me.

So
whilst the narrative aspect fell a little flat, I can’t deny that
those 3 hours were still top quality. 3 hours of fantastic visuals,
sound and animation. If I was scoring the game on those aspects
alone, it’s an easy 9/10.

But
I’m not. I’m also scoring on gameplay, and that’s where INSIDE
also stumbles. The puzzle/platform mechanics and the way the the game
introduces and evolves those mechanics throughout the 3 hour
experience is excellent. INSIDE was always giving me something new.

That
said, as clever as I think the game is at structuring its content,
it’s also rather easy. If you’re looking for a challenging
puzzle/platform game, INSIDE isn’t it. Aside from one or two
puzzles, everything in INSIDE is fairly simple to complete.

I
can admire the ingenuity of many of the puzzles and how the game
introduces new mechanics as you progress, but I also can’t deny how
simple they are and that ultimately, you’ll spend the most time
‘playing’ INSIDE by just holding down the key or stick to make
the kid run from left to right. Sometimes you have to press jump.
That’s about as involved as it gets.

INSIDE
is a very linear title, which isn’t a complaint as such, but it’s
something to be aware of. It’s a three hour adventure of going left
to right and solving some basic puzzles along the way to a rather
disappointing and abrupt ending. It’s not something you’ll likely
play more than once.

It’s
certainly a neat game to show people – it looks f**king gorgeous.
But the ‘game’ part isn’t particularly compelling. It’s good,
but it’s not great – aside from the giant testicle monster, which
may be one of the best things I’ve ever seen.

This
review is pretty short, but so is INSIDE. There’s really not much
more for me to say about it – or can say, without spoiling
something. Is it worth a go? Well, sure. If you liked Limbo you’ll
probably like this too. But honestly, if you want a game with
fantastic gameplay to match fantastic visuals and animation, then I
think Ori and the Blind Forest is the better option.

Sunday, 12 February 2017

I
must admit, I wasn’t particularly excited for the upcoming Ghost
Recon: Wildlands. What little I’d seen of it suggested a somewhat
mediocre mix of The Division and Far Cry. But I figured I’d give
the beta a shot. Wildlands is an open world, solo or up to four player
co-op third person shooter. It’s set in Bolivia and involves a
crack team of American special operatives attempting to disrupt and
dismantle a powerful drug cartel.

The
map is split into multiple regions each with its own primary
objective – taking out a key player in the cartel. In the beta,
only one region was available, but it’s likely to serve as the core
template upon which all regions are constructed.

In
order to take out the cartel ‘boss’ of the region, you’ll first
have to complete several smaller main missions that involve gathering
intel or interrogating goons. These lead to a final mission in which
you go after the boss. You’ll then gain access to new map regions
and other key targets, each of which is ranked on a difficulty scale.

Each
region also has multiple side missions involving a third rebel
faction. There are also multiple collectibles to discover (which will
be marked on your map if you access various forms of intel) and
‘supplies’ that you’ll need to unlock particular skills. So
far, so very Far Cry in terms of structure.

Which
you may consider to be a good or bad thing depending on your
preference. There’s certainly a lot of content to keep you busy in
Wildlands if you don’t care about the repetition. Because
ultimately, once you’ve played a single region, I suspect you’ve
played them all.

But
though Wildlands may resemble Far Cry in terms of its open world
structure, it must be said that (at least what I saw in the beta) it
is certainly not as entertaining to explore. The region in the beta,
though impressive in scale for a single region, was primarily dirt
roads and small villages.

Traversing
the map is rather dull, and there’s little reason to bother.
There’s nothing interesting to see or do. This isn’t helped by
the available vehicles, all of which handle rather poorly. Cars and
bikes aren’t enjoyable to drive, and helicopters – though simple
to control – feel slow and awkward to fly.

In
terms of missions it’s about what you’d expect – go to place,
shoot people. There’s little variety or elaboration in terms of
objectives. And whilst I appreciate being able to approach missions
in my own way by mixing combat and (rudimentary) stealth, nothing I
played in the beta was at all interesting in terms of mission design.
When compared to other Ubisoft titles such as The Division or
Watch_Dogs 2, the missions in the Wildlands beta were rather basic
and poorly constructed.

And
it’s dull. I’d honestly had enough of the beta after only
an hour of playing. I only stuck with it because I didn’t think it
was fair to judge until I’d completed all of the main missions. So
I did. But my opinion, unfortunately, didn’t change.

Technically,
the beta was stable and the performance, though not perfect, was
pretty good – unlike the recent For Honor beta. But I also couldn’t
stop playing For Honor, despite the technical hiccups. After only a
few short hours with the Wildlands beta, I’d had enough.

It’s
not just the basic missions and the repetitive region structure
that’s the problem, but the core gameplay. The Division suffered
similar issues but it also had a very enjoyable and fluid third
person cover/combat system. I expected Wildlands to be little more
than a copy and paste variation of this system. I was wrong. And I
really wish I wasn’t.

Compared
to the The Division, or any recent third person cover based shooter,
Wildlands feels dated and clunky. Movement animations are poor.
Weapons feel weak and pack very little punch – even the grenade
launchers are disappointing. The cover system is complete garbage and
barely functions as your character ‘slides’ along objects. None
of it feels good to play. For all the problems The Division had, at
least it provided satisfying and fun combat.

Another
thing I have to touch upon is the co-op feature. This game was
clearly designed for co-op so if you’re thinking of playing solo –
don’t. It wasn’t really a problem in The Division, but in that
game you didn’t have three useless AI team mates following you
around. Their AI is terrible. They ignore more enemies than they
shoot and when they do shoot they can’t seem to hit anything.

They
barely get involved in fights letting you do most of the work. The
only useful thing they do is revive you when you go down, but that’s
usually because they just stood by and watched as you were shot in
the back. I hated them and tried to murder them multiple times
without success.

Enemy
AI isn’t much better. They take basic cover, throw the odd grenade,
but they don’t coordinate or pose much of a threat unless they have
the numbers. Stealth in the game is just ‘press B to crouch’ so I
won’t bother saying more about that. Oh, and the story is pretty
bad, at least from what I saw in the beta. It’s trying to be
serious and failing miserably, the few attempts at injecting humour
falling entirely flat.

Is
there anything I like about it? The character customisation is okay,
and I liked the weapon customisation as it was a nice step up from
what was available in The Division. It looked nice, I guess. Yeah …
that’s about it. I don’t think I’ll be picking it up at
release, on sale or ever.

Tuesday, 7 February 2017

Watch_Dogs
was one of my favourite games of the last few years. I thought it was
pretty great. I know I’m in the minority with that opinion, and
particularly for my fondness of its protagonist – the ‘boring
white guy’ Aidan Pearce. For many reviewers, Watch_Dogs 2 is a
sequel that surpasses the original.

But
few were fans of the original game, so that’s not exactly a
surprising conclusion. But I am. So the question becomes – as a fan
of the original, do I think Watch_Dogs 2 is a better game? Well, I do
think it’s pretty good but once again, it seems I’m going to fall
into the minority and say – the original was better.

Let’s
begin with narrative. Watch_Dogs 2 is set in San Francisco and our
new hero is Marcus Holloway, a young hacker with a grudge against the
nefarious Blume Corporation – the creators of CTOS. To this end, he
joins the ‘hacktivist’ group DeadSec, a collection of misfits and
outcasts who embark on a series of ‘operations’ (missions) to
increase their ‘followers’ (which is cleverly tied into the XP
system) and undermine Blume and its allies.

The
tone of Watch_Dogs has taken a dramatic shift from dark and serious
to light and silly, and that’s immediately evident in your first
main mission in which Marcus is running about in his underwear. As a
result, Watch_Dogs 2 has a greater sense of fun and far more humour,
reflected both in the characters and how they interact, but also in
many of the missions you undertake.

But
this playful tone also results in a narrative that lacks any real
sense of drive. Why does Marcus care so much about ‘taking down’
Blume? And what does ‘taking down’ Blume actually mean? It’s a
nebulous goal with no narrative progression and a wholly unsatisfying
conclusion. Say what you will about the revenge based plot of the
original, but at least it gave both Pearce and the player a clear
motivation and goal.

The
problem with Watch_Dogs 2, is that none of the characters have a
comparable motivation driving their actions. Nearly everything is
done purely because ‘it’ll be funny’. It’s done ‘for the
lulz’. And that’s fine, to a degree, but it means the narrative
lacks bite. It lacks any sense of danger or stakes. There’s little
sense of threat to Marcus, despite him tackling a corporation we know
is willing to kill to protect its interests.

There
are odd moments when the game does try to be a little more serious,
but these moments are quickly glossed over and forgotten. I did like
Marcus and the supporting characters of Watch_Dogs 2, and I can’t
deny it had me laughing a lot more than the sombre and serious
original, but I also never really took their ‘mission’ very
seriously because … well, neither did they.

There
really needed to be a moment when they realised that ‘taking down’
Blume wasn’t just a game. A moment when Shit. Got. Real. That there
were consequences to their actions. It’s a moment that never comes.
And it doesn’t help that the main ‘villain’ of Watch_Dogs 2 is
a hipster with a man bun.

The
original narrative had a clear goal. It began with a mock execution,
with Pearce pointing a gun to the head of the man responsible for
killing his niece. And it ended the same way. It was a perfect circle
bringing the story to a close. The narrative had structure and pace –
a clear progression of Pearce (and the player) working towards a
goal, a goal Pearce was emotionally invested in achieving.

But
Watch_Dogs 2 doesn’t have any narrative thread guiding you from
start to finish. It’s just a series of disconnected, narratively
detached missions that eventually lead to a final mission which has
no build up at all. Seriously, there’s no real narrative build up
to ‘taking down’ Blume. The final mission just pops up, seemingly
at random – and what a lame final mission it is.

And
our heroes? When our heroes in Watch_Dogs 2 hit their first real
hurdle, all of them aside from Marcus are immediately ready to quit.
If they don’t really seem to care about their mission … then why
should I? Where’s the personal investment? What’s really at
stake?

The
tone also creates an odd clash with the gameplay. Pearce was on a
mission of revenge, fighting gangs, corporate assassination squads
and career criminals whereas Marcus is fighting … hipsters. There
is a small gang element to a couple of missions, but your primary
‘bad guys’ are poorly paid security guards just doing their job.
It never felt out of place for Pearce to murder his way (if the
player chose) through his missions, but Marcus?

Marcus
isn’t a criminal, not in the same sense as Pearce. Remember, Pearce
wasn’t really a ‘hacker’ in Watch_Dogs. He was a ‘fixer’
who worked with hackers, including DeadSec itself. He was accustomed
to violence. Marcus is just a kid who likes cheesy 80s action flicks
and taking selfies with his friends. So it’s all a little jarring
when you can equip him with military grade weapons and begin
murdering people. It’s even more jarring when none of your friends
comment on the fact that you murdered 8 people just to spray some
graffiti on an advertising board.

Sure,
you don’t have to and like the original, there’s certainly
non-lethal and stealth based options you can take. The point I’m
making is that Marcus killing just doesn’t feel right, not
for the character, not for the story and certainly not for the tone.
I can’t really criticise the game for giving the player the option
to use lethal violence, but I also can’t help but wonder what the
game would be like if they’d taken the bold design choice to limit
Marcus to entirely non-lethal weaponry and gadgets.

Speaking
of gadgets, Watch_Dogs 2 introduces a remote buggy and drone to the
series. These are a fantastic addition, opening up new ways to
approach missions, although I do feel they’ve made the game
significantly easier as a result. There are also cool new hacks to
utilise, my personal favourite being the ability to take control of
vehicles.

The
core gameplay of Watch_Dogs remains intact, as you use a variety of
hacks, stealth and combat to complete your missions. And that’s
something I loved about the original – being able to approach and
devise plans to complete these missions in my own way. The game
provides the toys, but how you use them is entirely up to you.

The
open world of Watch_Dogs 2 is a significant improvement over that of
the original and a far more enjoyable sandbox to screw about in. It’s
still not comparable to say, GTA V, but it’s a very good step in
the right direction. The new hacks like the vehicle control or the
ability to call the police to arrest people provide some extremely
enjoyable ways to f**k about and cause all kinds of havoc.

That
said, the side content of Watch_Dogs 2 isn’t as good. Although
there’s more unique and elaborate side missions, there’s nothing
quite as enjoyable or compelling when compared to those of the
original. The original also had far more side content, including
various mini-games (that Watch_Dogs 2 entirely lacks) and
collectibles, which it cleverly tied together by building unique
missions around them.

Player
progression in Watch_Dogs 2 is also a little annoying in the sense
that even if you’ve unlocked enough skill points to purchase a new
ability, you may not be able to until you’ve collected a ‘research
item’ on the map, forcing you to go and hunt it down. They’re not
hard to find. There’s very rarely any puzzle or challenge to
collecting them. It’s just a tedious way of slowing the player
down.

In
terms of performance, Watch_Dogs 2 isn’t great, with a frame rate
that frequently dips regardless of settings. It also randomly freezes
for a few seconds at odd times (even when using the menus) which
isn’t game breaking, but certainly irritating so I hope we see some
patches on the way.

Car
handling could be better as it feels very ‘floaty’. The original
didn’t have fantastic car handling either, but I’d have hoped for
an improvement in its sequel, including better car physics and damage
model – but we don’t really get either. This is one of the key
areas that Watch_Dogs as a series really needs to improve.

Overall,
despite my complaints, I enjoyed Watch_Dogs 2. The core gameplay
remains intact with the ability to approach missions in my own way,
at my own pace. And whilst none of the missions really connect
narratively, they are all fairly enjoyable and cleverly varied in
their own unique way. The open world is a good step up from the
original, and the new characters are a lot of fun.

But
Watch_Dogs 2 is also inconsistent with its tone, its narrative lacks
bite, and it doesn’t provide the appropriate motivation or
investment that the characters (and the player) need. Its side
content is rather shallow compared to the original, and I don’t
feel it offers such a wide range, variety and quality in terms of its
missions. It’s a very solid and enjoyable continuation of the Watch_Dogs series,
but I do think the original was better.

Wednesday, 1 February 2017

I
kind of hate For Honor. But I kept playing it all throughout its
beta. I’m irritated by it. Frustrated by it. But I kept going back
to it. I’m certainly not going to buy it, at least not on release.
Where the hell do I start?

Okay,
so let’s begin with technical issues. Yes, it was a beta so you
expect a degree of technical hiccup, but considering the game is due
to be released in a matter of weeks, what I saw in the beta isn’t
particularly promising.

The
matchmaking is completely f**ked. I spent more time in the beta
fighting bots than real people because the matchmaking simply
wouldn’t work half of the time. And often, even if I’d join a
lobby, it would be a bugged lobby stuck in a perpetual state of
loading.

Which
wouldn’t be too bad if you could quit the lobby and try again, but
you can’t because the developers didn’t include the option to
quit a lobby in this state, so anyone unfortunate enough to connect
can only hard close the game and restart the entire thing.

The
game also doesn’t use dedicated servers but peer-to-peer
connections and this is awful.
I don’t think I played a single game that didn’t have connection
issues as players dropped in and out, forcing the game to regularly
pause and resync. When this happens in the middle of a duel, it’s
bloody annoying.

Oh,
and sometimes it doesn’t just resync if a player disconnects, but
drops everyone from the match. And, in some cases, it simply
crashes the game. This was a real problem in the 1v1 and 2v2 duel
modes.

Yes,
it’s a beta, but whoever thought using peer-to-peer for a game that
involves precision melee based combat is a bloody idiot. Lag is a
major problem in many matches, and the varying connection speeds of
players results in awkward duels where blocking doesn’t always work
and hits don’t always connect.

I’ve
said before that inconsistency in a multiplayer game is a major
problem. When things don’t work the way they’re supposed to work
when you really need them to it’s incredibly infuriating.
And it’s not just lag that’s an issue, but the controls that
randomly decide not to respond. I had no end of problems with the
‘revenge’ mode refusing to activate no matter how hard or how
many times I’d hammer the button.

It’s
not just the technical issues that bothered me though, but certain
design choices. The game has an enjoyable, if somewhat limited combat
system that’s primarily designed for 1v1 duelling. But then someone
decided that the 1v1 duel mode, the mode where you’d think the
combat system would really shine, needed maps with lots of narrow
ledges and bridges.

The
majority of my 1v1 ‘duels’ were spent trying to avoid people
trying to charge, bash or throw me from a height for an easy kill.
Seriously, people just run about in circles avoiding combat so they
can try to knock you off a ledge.

The
main mode of this beta was Dominion which involves capturing three
strategic points in a 4v4 battle that includes some basic solider
npcs. This is the mode I was able to play the most with other people
but it’s also the mode that suffered the most from connection
problems.

It’s
also chaotic as f**k, especially if you’re fighting around the npcs
who simply get in the way of your attacks or block your escape. It
becomes hard to see what the hell is going on and as a result,
everyone just wades in spamming heavy attacks in the hopes of landing
a hit. This is also a mode where it’s better to just stick close to
your team and gang up on people.

Sure,
you can try to fight a couple of people at once and that’s what the
‘revenge’ system is really used for – when it decides to
trigger if at all – but if you’ve got three people bashing into
you at once, you’re f**ked regardless. It’s just not worth
getting stuck into any 1v1 duels in this mode because you can be sure
that within seconds you’ll have another player or two getting
involved.

And
because it’s so easy to regenerate health within controlled zones,
it’s a mode that results in a lot of silly chases around the map as
players low on health flee to heal. The mode doesn’t emphasis or
reward good skill at the combat system, but rather how good you are
at ganging up on people, spamming heavy attacks from behind when
they’re bogged down in npcs or chasing people down on low health
for easy kills.

And
there’s lots of other little things that irritated the shit out of
me. The player lock on is buggy as f**k and would frequently jump
between targets when I was trying to fight more than one player.
Losing stamina makes your screen go black, white and blurry and hard
to see what the f**k is going on. It’s an unnecessary effect that
will just get on your tits.

If
there’s not enough players in a match the slots will be filled with
bots (which are actually fairly competent) but if a player does join
in progress, the bot will simply vanish – even in the middle of a
duel. It’s jarring and annoying and they really need to change it
so the player has to wait until the bot dies and the slot becomes
open. Or just until the bot isn’t actively engaged.

There’s
a system for levelling your character and unlocking new abilities,
but these abilities are basically magic and feel pretty cheap
and silly within a game based around skilful melee combat. You can
also unlock new cosmetic and stat based gear, but the stat stuff
isn’t very interesting because it can’t be – otherwise
you’d have a game with major balance issues.

And
the cosmetic stuff isn’t great either because they clearly want to
retain the basic appearance of your chosen class. As a result, no
matter how many pieces of armour, weapons, colours or patterns you
unlock, you’re never really going to see a noticeable difference in
the game when compared to other player characters.

The
entire menu and UI system is sterile and dull as f**k with multiple
currencies, upgrade options, loot drops, xp and microtransaction
bullshit that feels shallow and tacked on because someone realised
they actually needed to make a game and not just a neat little
1v1 combat system. And that’s the real problem with For Honor. They
made a neat little 1v1 combat system but that’s all they really
made. The rest of the ‘game’ just feels knocked together to
justify its stupidly high price.

I
kind of hate For Honor. But I kept going back to it. Because the
combat system, when it works, is actually pretty fun. The few times I
had some proper duels with people were tense, exciting and very
enjoyable even if I lost. But that’s simply not enough. The game
has way too many problems both technically and by design. I shouldn’t
be wanting to punch the game every other match because it
continually f**ks up.